What you didn't know about the Village Blacksmith

What you didn’t know, about the Village Blacksmith…

In the early part of human history, blacksmith shops were normally on the outskirts of the villages or towns, The towns folk believed they were dealing in witchcraft or the dark arts because they used fire to make weapons, tools and utensils out of something that came from the earth. Include the fact that the blacksmith smithy was dark except for the hot forge fire and a couple windows covered in soot.

The iron that was made came originally from bog ore, charred wood (real charcoal) and Lime.

At the time the pilgrims came to America. The English Crown passed laws to try to stop the making of metal and other commodities, forcing the villagers to buy these things from England at prohibitively high prices. The settlers that came from England were tradesman, farmers and anyone willing to become an indentured servant for 7 years to pay for passage to the new world. But don’t for a second think that these tradesmen would uproot their families, sail across the vast ocean and give up a trade they knew. So, against the Crown Law they started making iron back in the 1600's

The early smelters who made pure iron, also called pig iron, usually had their smelting towers built near a river, so that a water wheel could be utilized to keep the bellows pumping and blasting air into the mixture of hot charcoal, bog ore and lime. They would have a plug level with the surface of the hot liquid iron. The lime would work as a flux allowing the dross or waste to rise to the surface, separating it from the pure liquid iron.

Once ready they would break the top plug to allow the dross to flow out as waste. At the bottom of the tower they had a plug to allow the liquid iron to flow out into a sand cast shaped as a large ingot with smaller ingots coming out from each side along its length. The shape of the casts was like a large pig with little suckling piglets; thus, the name pig iron was cast into existence.

The hot liquid iron would inevitably pick up some sand in the hot mixture and that became the silica that would later be worked into the iron. The pig iron would have a high carbon content of around 4% making it very brittle yet moldable. The larger ingot would be re-melted and poured into molds to make cast iron pots and griddles along with other items. The smaller ingots would be sold to the blacksmith who would hammer forge them down to useable sized pieces.

Through this hammer forging process the silica would be worked in and give the iron some plasticity. The iron would start to show a grain, like that of wood. It would need to be worked very hot to keep the iron from splitting out like wire. They found they could affect the workability and transform the pure iron into wrought iron, giving it toughness and lowering the carbon content. They found that the more they hammer forged the iron, the better grade it would become.

True wrought iron would not rust away as steel does. As the iron oxidized, it created an outer barrier allowing the iron inside to remain impervious to the elements. This is proven out today, if you go to the east coast and look at old cemetery fences still standing strong after hundreds of years.

You wouldn’t even attempt to start a village or town if there wasn’t, first, a blacksmith. Almost every part of a villager’s life utilized something made by a blacksmith. Believe it or not, the local blacksmith also kept the best records in the village or town and since the villagers hardly ever had coin, they would barter for the services of the blacksmith.

Now everyone had to deal with the blacksmith some time or another, since they supplied everything from pots and pans, cooking utensils, shoes for horses, even the occasional pulled tooth. Yes, the blacksmith would even be called upon to pull teeth because he had the tongs to do so.

Think of documenting the tracks of these transactions.

The Johnson’s need something repaired by the blacksmith and they would ask him what he needed in return. Being a small community the Johnson’s would probably know that the Thompson’s needed some extra milk for their new baby and the Hogan’s cow just lost a calf and they had extra milk. While the Johnson's had some eggs for the Thomson’s who had some wool for the Hogan's who in return had leather for a new apron for the blacksmith. They would barter amongst themselves while the blacksmith kept track of all the transactions.

The demand of a blacksmith can be seen when looking at what was used daily by the villagers when cooking over an open-hearth fire. They would need fire dogs to keep the wood from rolling out onto the floor of the house. They would need a swinging pot hook to swing their cook pot over the fire, or a trivet to put the frying pan over some coals, a trammel hook to adjust height of the pot over the fire as well as common fire tools.

Looking at their daily needs for candle holders, hangers for dried meat and herbs, knives, spatulas, spoons, forks and other kitchen utensils, door hinges, latches, cart and wagon wheels,

as well as gardening tools, plows, hoes, pitch forks, axes and gun parts. Also, if you took a moment and thought about it, every tradesman in the area had tools made by the blacksmith.

Back then an apprentice would work for the master smith for seven years to become a journeyman blacksmith. When his time was done, and he was proficient at the skills, the master smith would send him off to make his fortune with his own anvil which they would make together. Unless he was asked to stay on as a paid journeyman.

The apprentice would get a room, meals and needed clothes. He would be the first up in the morning, to clean out the forge, separating the ash, clinkers and coal to ready the firing of the forge. He would fill up the charcoal bin, forge weld all the smaller pieces or drops of iron together to make a larger, more useful lengths. He would fill the quench buckets and ready the Smithy for the Master smith. When he wasn’t busy helping, he would be making nails of which they would need hundreds.

You might even wonder where he got his charcoal from. There would be families that moved from village to village and they would get permission or pay to cut trees and stack them in a large mound with the logs standing vertical. They would purposely keep a couple open holes or flues for the smoke to escape. To keep the wood from getting too much air and burning, they would cover the whole pile with a thick layer of earth and allow the wood to char but keeping it from getting to much oxygen and burning. As the fire burned the fuel in and around the flues it wouldn’t have enough air to burn and would need to be tamped down constantly as the charred word lost mass. Once the charred wood stopped smoking the air holes or flues would be completely covered allowing it to go out and eventually cool down. This would take approximately a month and these families would then sell their charred wood (charcoal) to the smelters and the blacksmith and then move on to another village or town.

Hello readers, my name is Daniel Marcellus Bell. I am a hobbyist blacksmith of 20 some odd years. This is my first time writing and I credit this story to my love of history and to a young home-schooled boy who asked me a great question.

At the time I was portraying a colonial blacksmith at a local reenactment here in central Minnesota. The young boy asked me a question as I was teaching groups of children about blacksmithing. His question was "where did the blacksmith get the iron?" My response at the time was "that is a great question, at this moment I do not have an answer but when I see you next year, I will." Bless the inquisitive minds of children.

I wish to credit Fredrick Magazine of London for the 1887 Photo of the Donsife Brothers blacksmith shop.